Patricia Clarkson narrates this documentary about the Federal Writers Project, a controversial public assistance program and one of four arts programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration. Thousands of writers, including Richard Wright, Saul Bellow, and John Cheever, traveled throughout the country to interview ordinary people for a series of state guidebooks. A unique portrait of 1930s Americana, what they uncovered profoundly impacted the project, the nation, and modern literature. Based on the book by David A. Taylor, the program includes interviews with two of the Project's best-known workers, Studs Terkel (in one of his last interviews) and Stetson Kennedy, as well as a diverse group of authors, poets, and historians, including Douglas Brinkley and David Bradley.